EU Insights study on consumers and dietary sugars (Dataset)

In 2017, EFSA received a mandate for a scientific opinion on the Tolerable Upper Intake Level of dietary sugars following a request by five national competent authorities (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) on EFSA’s Advisory Forum.

Social research was required to examine the views of the general public through a consumer survey, and the perspectives of relevant professional categories through qualitative interviews. Through these methods EFSA’s intention was to collect evidence on: i) public attitudes towards dietary sugars; ii) perceptions of the related risks of the dietary intake of sugars; iii) the most trusted and frequently used information sources for learning about sugars and other nutrition-related topics; and iv) other factors that influence food choice and eating behaviour. The results were intended for use by EFSA and its national competent authority partners in the EU Member States, Norway and Iceland.

The survey was conducted among 7,469 citizens (aged between 18 and 76) across all EU27 member states plus Norway and Iceland. Data collection ran between 14th October 2020 and 11th November 2020. In most countries, at least 250 questionnaires were completed, except for the smaller countries Cyprus, Iceland, Malta, and Luxembourg, where the target was 150 due to scarcity of sample. This ensures a 95% confidence interval of roughly 8 percentage points. These sample sizes provide robust results and ensure that responses are representative in each of the countries to be surveyed.

The sample was nationally representative with respect to age, gender and socio-economic grouping. Other demographic information collected was level of education and employment status. Respondents were also asked if they were parents so that comparisons could be made about the knowledge and opinions of parents compared to non-parents.